Rocky
Point Park in Warwick, Rhode Island, has suffered its
share of misfortune since it first opened to the public
in 1847. Hurricane destruction, ownership changes, and
ultimately, financial problems plagued the park. But if
you were fortunate enough to visit Rocky Point in the
early 1960s, you may have seen some of legendary designer
Bill Tracy's best work.

Of course, Rocky Point, a scenic park on the shore of
Narragansett Bay, was host to other rides in the dark
before Tracy arrived on the scene. There was the Blue
Beard's Palace walk-through in which patrons entered a
wooden "palace" but soon found themselves in a dark cave
inhabited by pirates. There was a standard-issue Old Mill
which the park renamed Tunnels of Love.

The
Fun in the Dark rounded out the park's dark ride line-up.
Rocky Point also had some of the area's best roller coasters
including the Philadelphia Toboggan Company's, Wildcat,
as well as a Bartlett / Schmeck Flying Turns coaster and
the Russian Toboggan coaster, which ended in a splash
down similar to a log flume ride. All were leveled by
the Great Hurricane of 1938, a violent storm that claimed
hundreds of lives in the Ocean State.

With
all but a handful of rides and structures destroyed by
the storm, it took the park nearly 10 years to rebuild
and reopen. One of the many attractions that debuted on
the new Art Deco inspired midway was an R.E. Chambers
dark ride with plywood cutout stunts. At the other end
of the midway closest to the bay was the Kunyatsi's Fun
House that was short on stunts but had plenty of distorted
mirrors and glass. The Chambers ride, presumably a standard
Laff In The Dark installation, was renamed the House of
Horrors by the late 1950s and the façade was redecorated
with a disembodied head clutched by a dragon, plus a laughing
witch. A continuously playing sound cart sent shrieks,
moaning and groaning across the midway. Inside, it was
anything but horrors. The first plywood stunt was the
Big Bad Wolf blowing the roof off the Three Little Pigs'
house of straw, followed by Popeye battling his nemesis
Brutus. There was the kicking mule scene, a staple in
the R.E. Chambers dark rides. The closest stunt to being
frightening was a wooden witch flying on her broomstick.

In
a 1984 interview with the late Conrad Ferla, general manager
of the park for 35 years, he explained that the Chambers
ride was cost-efficient at the time and could utilize
one of the park's few standing structures, which he believed
to be a former pony stable. However, Chambers ride's days
were numbered, as were those of the Fun House. In 1962,
Rocky Point's competition across the Bay, Crescent Park,
had launched Tracy's Riverboat, one of the first dark
rides in Southern New England with a theme. The Riverboat
featured life-size papier-mâché figures and scenery, enhanced
by different sound effects for each set.

With
the Riverboat dark ride attracting patrons by the thousands
to Crescent Park, Rocky Point officials had to make their
move. It commissioned Bill Tracy's company to convert its
two dark attractions. During the summer and fall of 1962,
park construction workers and Tracy began converting the
single-story Fun House (which by then had been renamed Crystal
Maze) into a double-decker macabre-looking castle across
from Kiddie Land. Park goers watched in amazement as gothic-era
towers sprang up.

Meanwhile,
further down the midway, the House of Horrors kept chugging
along until early fall 1962 when Tracy and crew went to
work. It was here that Tracy reinforced his reputation
as the Wizard of Worst Case Scenario as he created Jungle
Land. All the plywood stunts were removed in favor of
very realistic looking jungle creatures and African natives
who tortured and attacked terrified safari-goers wearing
pit helmets and khakis. The wooden Chambers cars were
replaced by beige jeeps. The façade was strategically
subtle, with silhouetted drawings of African warriors
and jungle animals.

The ride was plagued by downtime in its 1963 debut season,
probably because some of the stunt execution was unprecedented.
With the kinks worked out, Jungle Land began operating
in earnest in the summer of 1964. Riders plunged into
the Dark Continent right after the double doors, encountering
charging hippos, rhinos and water buffalo. They witnessed
safari-goers being roasted over open flames: a scene that
was completely blacked out in subsequent years. Next up
was a giant snake rising out of a river. Incredibly, the
jeep headed on a collision course with the huge reptile
-- a trick achieved by painting an extension of the snake's
body on a set of double doors.

Still
riding along the riverbank, riders saw a safari couple
embraced in a passionate kiss, unaware of the giant alligator
opening his jaws behind them. Ahead, more Tracy dark humor
- a confused gorilla scratching his head trying to decide
what to do with the pit helmeted-explorer he was holding
in his other hand. Suddenly, the landscape went dark and
all that could be heard was the screeching of birds and
monkeys. Suddenly a black light was activated, illuminating
a tiger leaping from a tree. Just as its outstretched
claws came within a foot of riders, the light went off,
leaving folks covering their heads. Before they could
breathe a sigh of relief, they were greeted by another
ferocious feline - this time a lion - pouncing from a
rock. Both stunts were so well orchestrated so that riders
had no time to see the thin cables and tiny pulleys that
made the beasts come to life.
Following the cat attack, riders again found themselves
in total darkness. This proved to be the most chilling
segment, featuring growls of wild animals, screaming humans
and spider webs brushing riders' foreheads. It was downright
scary since one never knew if something was going to leap
out of the darkness. However, the jeep eventually entered
a peaceful rain forest with chirping birds and what appeared
to be a friendly chimp beckoning from a tree limb. Of
course, in true Tracy fashion, the chimp took an angry
swipe at riders as they passed. Leaving the rain forest,
riders encountered a charging wild boar and completed
the ride with what could have been a political statement
from Tracy. In a short tree was a poacher firing his rifle
at a large oncoming elephant. Just as the elephant was
about to disembowel the poacher with his ivory tusks,
the black light went off and one could hear the poacher's
dying scream as the jeep emerged into the light of the
unloading platform.

A
few years later, the park renamed the ride to Jungle Terrors,
placing a giant gorilla on top of the façade. Sadly, the
terrors decreased inside as the stunts fell victim to
neglect and vandals. In many cases, the black lighting
was replaced by household light bulbs. The tiger and lion
became entangled in their cables and pulleys, resembling
over-sized stuffed animals hanging out to dry on a clothesline.
The "river water" began to smell like sewer water and
rays of sunlight began penetrating the venerable building.
Perhaps the biggest farce was the last scene that became
lit exclusively by daylight peeking through a large, gaping
hole in the rear of the building. The hole was probably
cut to remove jeeps for repair. Sometimes one would see
disabled jeeps wheels lying up next to the elephant. In
1968, a chain link

fence was installed around the scene to keep riders
from running out the hole. The sunlight exposed
the steel track and wheels that the elephant "charged"
on. The poacher had been removed from the tree
and was now hanging from a noose. The stunt still
worked but made no sense. In that 1984 interview,
Ferla admitted that the building had started to
show its age and that the stunts were simply too
difficult to maintain. He added that Rocky Point
was budgeting for expansion of the midway and
Jungle Terrors didn't fit into the long-range
plans. So the ride was demolished at the end of
the 1969 season, as a new era evolved at Rocky
Point. The hippos and several other jungle animals
found a temporary home along the track of the
park's train ride, but none were laminated for
protection against the elements. Within a year,
they were removed. By 1971, nothing remained of
Jungle Land/Jungle Terrors except memories.